Would it be possible to make a self-help videogame?

[J T]

It's really late. I'll think about this more later. However, I figured that this thread needed mention of ELIZA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

Yeah, Eliza is a really interesting concept. It's kind of primitive, but I have read that there was another program called PC therapist that was made in the 90s by a psychologist/programmer that found Eliza boring after 10 minutes. Eliza just takes some basic Rogerian therapy responses that reflect your questions back to you. He decided to create something that behaved more like a cognitive behavioral therapist and created the PC Theraist. Apparently, it actually passed the Turing test (it convinced people they were talking with a human). I want to find that.

I recently discovered The Personality Forge, which is a place where people create Chat Bots with different personalities that will have chat conversations with you. They provide the basic software to get you started and it is supposedly not that difficult.
http://www.personalityforge.com/index.php

I'm thinking I might try my hand at this and see if I could come up with a decent therapist chat bot. It could be fun. I'd like to see something like this integrated into a a larger game too (whether for therapy purposes or just as a cool way to make NPCs more interesting).

[brunoafh]

I think there is a parallel here to the piracy problem that video games and other forms of digital media have. Pirates are basically people that want something for nothing, and people that can't afford therapy also want something for nothing.

This may be the case, but pirates just want a video game for free. Wanting potentially life altering therapy for free is a different thing entirely. My gripes with therapy are that it's essentially an occupation, and ultimately the therapist is only giving you the time of day because you paid him/her (oversimplification I know). I don't think that people who are mentally unstable and desperately need some kind of help should be shot down because they don't have the hundreds of dollars to pay up. In all honesty, I don't think it's too outlandish of an idea for therapy to work in the vein of the UK's NHS. Therapy should be a place to go for people that may be in crisis, and they shouldn't have to be worrying about breaking the bank on top of it.

But in regards to a game, if you were able to create something effective, I bet you might just be onto something. I'm ignorant to the sciences behind psychoanalysis of course, but you ought to try experimenting with some ideas in your program of choice. The NPC thing you mention actually sounds pretty interesting, it would be a great idea for an RPG if all of the NPCs in the towns reacted to your actions and personality on a deep level somehow.

Somewhat related, I hear that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories attempts to "profile" you too. I haven't played it though, I wonder if it's a mechanic that was well done at all.

[J T]

This may be the case, but pirates just want a video game for free. Wanting potentially life altering therapy for free is a different thing entirely.

I agree. They are totally different. I guess my point is just that both industries have a problem of there being a lot of people that would like to have their product/service, but are not buying it. The creative ways in which some game makers have been dealing with piracy provide a good source of ideas for how I think a team of therapists could better bring their services to people that aren't getting them (and still collect enough of a profit to remain in business). There's a lot of paradoxical things that are working for video games, such as giving away your game for free (and gaining profits from advertisements, subscriptions, or microtransactions instead). Basically, internet companies are changing the whole world of business right now and turning old retail models on their ears. I think the same things could apply in my field.

My gripes with therapy are that it's essentially an occupation, and ultimately the therapist is only giving you the time of day because you paid him/her (oversimplification I know).

Yeah, that part is weird on the end of the therapist as well. You do actually care about your patients, and yet, you have to keep these professional boundaries to maintain your business (as well as to not exploit the relationship). I often explain to my clients that it is a real relationship, but it's just a different relationship than they would have with a friend. The primary thing that is different is that everything is focused on them and I don't ask them to do anything to help me with my life or my problems other than the payment. They are also paying for my expertise. I don't know. It's still weird and I don't know if I've found the perfect solution to it.

I don't think that people who are mentally unstable and desperately need some kind of help should be shot down because they don't have the hundreds of dollars to pay up. In all honesty, I don't think it's too outlandish of an idea for therapy to work in the vein of the UK's NHS. Therapy should be a place to go for people that may be in crisis, and they shouldn't have to be worrying about breaking the bank on top of it.

I would love to see more people be able to get therapy for free when they need it (and some do). It's just really hard to do that without government funding and the US government is all about slashing funds to social services these days. I dislike that, but bitching about it and waging political battles only does so much. I also need to be profitable at times when capitalist republicans are in office and decide that tax breaks are more important than helping the poor and needy through government services. According to the APA, a portion of a professional psychologist's work should be done on sliding scale or free of charge for those in need. I would like to see a slightly different model, if possible. As it stands, many psychologists make a lot of their money off of mildly depressed rich people so that they can do sliding scale services with people who have really severe problems. A lot of them also just work entirely with wealthy clients. Many therapists don't have the extensive training to even know what to do with some of the more severe cases, and since there is no money in it, they don't get that training. It's a weird field for this reason and part of why I think we need to rethink how we do business in psychology.

Somewhat related, I hear that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories attempts to "profile" you too. I haven't played it though, I wonder if it's a mechanic that was well done at all.

Oh yeah! I forgot Shattered Memories did that. It had some good questions in it, but it wasn't clear to me how it affected my gameplay from the 2 or 3 hours I devoted to it. It's a cool concept though. I know Valve is experimenting with different ways of informing "the director" they use in Left 4 Dead to tailor the game to be more scary based on an individualized understanding of what frightens the user. Cool stuff.

[J T]

Here is a great program that tracks how you spend your time on your computer.

http://www.rescuetime.com/

It graphs out how much time you spend on different programs and what types of websites you use. It can give you all kinds of graphs about the way you spend your time and lets you know how productive you are being (or not, depending). It also gives you the average user productivity quotient, which serves as a kind of "high score" system almost. It's not really a game, but it has great functionality that could be incorporated into something more game-like where productivity is the goal.

[J T]

Here's another interesting program:

Goal Pro
http://www.success.net/goalpro/?affid=50571

Like Rescue Time, Goal Pro offers you graphs and read outs about your progress on different goals you have set for yourself. Again, not a game, but I think a self-help game should have software like this that allows you to visually monitor your progress over time.

[J T]

I forgot that I heard about this treatment in an anxiety practicum. It's pretty amazing. It uses some principles of behaviorism to retrain people's attentional/cognitive biases just by looking at images on a computer screen and it can have long term mental health benefits.

I was reminded of it from this news story:
http://io9.com/#!5781284/forget-therapy ... a-computer

[jfrost]

I haven't read the whole thread yet. It seems to me that almost all videogames can be considered "self-help" in a broad sense, since in them you're pretty much allowed to do anything and can overcome nearly impossible odds. I don't know, however, if that "I am awesome" feeling would translate to everyday life.

[Blue Night]

quite possible

[Hatta]

Timothy Leary, a psychologist by profession, created a psychoanalytical video game. I saw an original copy at a library book sale once, back before I collected retro computers. Wish I had picked it up.

[J T]

Timothy Leary, a psychologist by profession, created a psychoanalytical video game. I saw an original copy at a library book sale once, back before I collected retro computers. Wish I had picked it up.

Awesome! I never knew he did that. Leary is kind of a mad hatter, but that's what I love about him.

I googled the title and found a version of the game online that you can play in your browser:

http://mindmirror.com/classic/MMWebpage.html